How to Choose Between Robotic Process Automation and Back-End System Automation?

Abstract

Recent literature has identified two main types of IT-enabled innovation and labelled them as lightweight IT and heavyweight IT. In this study, we look into robotic process automation (RPA) as lightweight IT and traditional back-end system automation as heavyweight IT and study how a case company Telco makes the choice between these two alternative ways of implementing automation. Drawing on an empirical study conducted at Telco examining two automation projects, we find support for earlier studies addressing specifically the choice problem of RPA. Our main contribution lies in uncovering the role of the two-dimensional feature stability on the choice. While heavyweight IT is preferred when system architecture is stable, lightweight IT, operating on the presentation layer, holds a prerequisite of stable system interfaces.

Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Operations & Information Management
Additional Information: © 2018 The Authors
Event Title: European Conference on Information Systems 2018
Event Type: Other
Event Dates: 2018-06-23 - 2018-06-28
Uncontrolled Keywords: Robotic Process Automation,business process,lightweight IT,heavyweight IT,system architecture,RPA
Last Modified: 19 Mar 2024 08:39
Date Deposited: 09 Jul 2018 12:20
PURE Output Type: Paper
Published Date: 2018-06-25
Authors: Penttinen, Esko
Kasslin, Henje
Asatiani, Aleksandre (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-7358-9018)

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